Maximal Speed for Macroscopic Particle Transport in the Bose-Hubbard Model

Abstract

The Lieb-Robinson bound asserts the existence of a maximal propagation speed for the quantum dynamics of lattice spin systems. Such general bounds are not available for most bosonic lattice gases due to their unbounded local interactions. Here we establish for the first time a general ballistic upper bound on macroscopic particle transport in the paradigmatic Bose-Hubbard model. The bound is the first to cover a broad class of initial states with positive density including Mott states, which resolves a longstanding open problem. It applies to Bose-Hubbard-type models on any lattice with not too long-ranged hopping. The proof is rigorous and rests on controlling the time evolution of a new kind of adiabatic spacetime localization observable via iterative differential inequalities.